Tuesday, October 11, 2011

BNP: The Fraud Exposed

Griffin is under attack once more, but the ruling class got a free pass from BBC

BBC One, 11th October 2011

Last night's edition of Panorama was a devastating exposé of the far right British National Party's dismal accounts. Fronted by investigator Darragh MacIntyre (brother of Donal), it unveiled multiple likely scandals in the organisation's financial dealings over the last few years. Clearly, the BNP are in big trouble balancing their books, and at the end, MacIntyre posed the question "Will money rather than racism spell the end for Nick Griffin's British National Party?" However, the programme was also yet another example of how the 'mainstream' corporate media uses the far right as a punch bag, and in doing so works to implicitly legitimise the far larger misdeeds of the political elites.

Former 'super-activist' Jim Dowson described the shady ways in which he raised money to fund the party's 'truth truck' and other enterprises. An ex party webmaster recalled the Griffin response to a cyber attack on the BNP website, which was rather hyperbolically described as "the largest DOS attack known to mankind". Griffin announced that supporters needed to raise £5000 to counter the attack, when in fact the bill came to less than £200. Griffin claimed the surplus found its way back into party coffers.

The BNP has also apparently failed to declare who gave three donations over £5000, as they are required to do under electoral law. The party's former treasurer also denies that he was paid tens of thousands, in an apparent attempt to explain away other missing money. The man in question was no longer a member when this money was supposedly paid. Other matters include an alleged kidnapping.

Were the BBC to ask disgruntled former employees of the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat parties, they would no doubt be able to uncover examples of fraud on a far greater scale. This possibility would never even occur to a BBC producer - comfortably embedded as they are in the propaganda machine - yet no working class person would seriously doubt that the elites so mired in Murdochgate, the expenses scandal and individual sleaze would produce a doctored set of accounts.

So technically correct though the latest Panorama allegations probably are, they do nothing to clean out the Augean stables of official politics, and will no doubt suit the martyr image carefully cultivated by Griffin and his cohorts.